Segregated Prom: Change Long Time in Coming

Granted the thought of even holding a prom in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia seems unfathomable (right now), but in one Georgia town the public high-school prom has been until last month a civil rights disgrace. The story out of Ashburn, Georgia, shows just how long change can take - and even then can remain incomplete. Check it:

Students of Turner County High School started what they hope will become a new tradition: Black and white students attended the prom together for the first time on Saturday. In previous years, parents had organized private, segregated dances for students of the school in rural Ashburn, Georgia, 160 miles south of Atlanta

"Whites always come to this one and blacks always go to this one," said Lacey Adkinson, a 14-year-old freshman at the school of 455 students -- 55 percent black, 43 percent white... But this year's upperclassmen -- 213 students total --voted to have just one official prom.

"It's been a dream of all of ours," Senior Class President James Hall said. "We didn't want to put emphasis on integrated blacks and whites coming together. We just wanted to put emphasis on this was our first school prom," Principal Chad Stone said...

Another tradition that ended this year -- having two separate homecoming queens. "You pick the homecoming queen for their personalities and being a role model," explained Roshunda Pierce, 16, as she waited to get her nails done for prom. In the past, two queens were chosen -- one white, one black...

But not everyone in the town of 4,400, famous for its peanuts and Fire Ant Festival, was breaking with the past. The "white prom" still went on last week.

"We did everything like a regular prom just because we had already booked it," said, Cheryl Nichols, 18, who attended the dance. Nichole Royal, 18, said black students could have gone to the prom, but didn't...

Valerie McKellar echoed that sentiment as she watched white and black students pose together. "That is so fake. There is nothing real about that," she said. "That's just like you're cooking a half-baked cake, putting the icing on it, and when you cut the cake, the cake ain't no good. That's how this prom is," she said. McKellar said the prom was a good step, but more needs to be done. "There is a time and season for all things, and right now it's time for Turner County to make a change..."

Inside the auditorium, students put the controversy aside and danced for hours... Aneisha Gipson, who was crowned prom queen, said the night could not have been better. "Amazing. It was absolutely amazing. It was perfect."

It's taken over 40 years, but at last the prom in this Georgia County is desegregated, even if not everyone attends. Congratulations to prom queen Aneisha Gipson!

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About now, high-school seniors everywhere slip into a glorious sort of limbo. Waiting out the final weeks of the school year, they begin rightfully to revel in the shared thrill of moving on. It is no different in south-central Georgia’s Montgomery County, made up of a few small towns set between fields of wire grass and sweet onion. The music is turned up. Homework languishes. The future looms large. But for the 54 students in the class of 2009 at Montgomery County High School, so, too, does the past. On May 1 — a balmy Friday evening — the white students held their senior prom. And the following night — a balmy Saturday — the black students had theirs.

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Having a prom its such a privilege, not many people have the opportunity of one, mine was one of the best days of my life, knowing what I accomplish and knowing that I was on the right track on my life.

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